Clickjacking Problems Worsen

You can always count on Sophos to give you the bad news. They’ve come through with solid research before, and it looks like they’ve just released another report showing that the Internet is in a bad way, at least when it comes to security.

According to surveys conducted by Sophos, 40 percent of people using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have been exposed to some sort of malware. 40 percent probably sounds pretty high to you. It’ll sound even more outrageous when you realize that the number of people is actually 90 percent higher than the number of people affected by malware in 2009.

Why the huge jump?

A lot of it has to do with the increased popularity of social networking sites. A couple years ago, Twitter was just starting to become popular. You’d hear some real geeky friends talking about it, but your parents sure weren’t getting tweets at all hours.

Hackers have also upped their game to take advantage of flaws in the Internet and, dare I say it, human nature. Clickjacking, for instance, barely even existed a few years ago. Those who knew about it were mostly the same people trying to protect Internet users from it. Today, hackers have figured out how to create some rather ingenious clickjack attacks that can turn on your camera, purchase items without your explicit permission, and even install malware to your computer.

And human nature… that’s a problem not easily solved. Hackers have used everything from celebrity gossip to sex tapes to convince people to visit their websites. Once you click on that site, you’ve been jacked.